


Gotham: Law & Order

by on_the_moon_at_last



Series: Pre-Convergence [1]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 02:17:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20056417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/on_the_moon_at_last/pseuds/on_the_moon_at_last
Summary: Earth-13: Jim works with Sofia Falcone to take down The Penguin, but she has her own agenda. Elsewhere, Ra's al Ghul comes to Gotham, intent on molding Bruce Wayne into his heir and providing the world with a new savior- or at least someone to oppose him.





	Gotham: Law & Order

**Author's Note:**

> So this is basically my take on the final two seasons of Gotham. It's heavily AU after chapter 10.

Sinister is the simplest way to describe Gotham City. Barbara Gordon knows that well, has known it since her birth. People have told her stories all her life. Stories of great heroes and villains who have come and gone through the darkened streets of that dismal island city off the coast of Jersey where the sun never shines. Stories the second-generation GCPD detective always knew in her heart to be true but her training told her were too fantastical to believe. She’s seen them, as everyone else on the force has but won’t dare admit. The creatures in the shadows. Poison Ivy and the Joker. Freeze. Some of her older colleagues were around during the first days of the Cataclysm. Some of them, if you press hard enough, will tell you the fables of Ra’s al Ghul. But that was all some thirty-five years ago and people move on. Facts turn to tall tales turn to myth and fade from popular memory. They occupy the same spaces as ghost stories and apocryphal religious traditions. Informally, they’re nice ways to pass the time and keep the kids in line. Formally, everyone knows they could not have possibly happened.

Everyone knows some nut brought over a virus that decimated Gotham’s population, everyone knows some other nut blew up the bridges, and everyone knows this hellhole seceded about three years after all that mess. Became its own city-state, protected by its own vigilante who dresses up like a bat to nail who the courts and cops can’t. Nobody contests any of that. But the rest of it? Nah, that’s all local superstition.

At least, that’s what she always says when someone asks her. It’s the company line. There’s nothing mysterious or supernatural about Gotham, oh no, it’s just a shitty place to live with a high crime rate and an even higher selection of costumed crazies to choose from. Barbara knows better. The maniac in a purple suit putting a bullet through her spine and crippling her for life six months ago was proof enough. ‘Collateral damage in his lifelong game with the Bat’, says the voice that haunts her nightmares. Her first real run-in with one of Batman’s so-called Rogues and this is what happens. Just her luck.

It’s morning now, the pale sunlight creeping in through the satin curtains. Barbara blinks it away, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she rolls over. _God, even the sun is shitty here,_ she thinks. Wayne Manor isn’t that bad a place to live, even if it is just her and Bruce these days. Everyone else has moved on. Dick, Jason, Tim and Steph, even Alfred. God, she misses Alfred. Funny, she can miss a man she never had the pleasure of meeting. She feels like she knows the old butler, though, from Bruce’s stories and her father’s journals. He was a good man. Would’ve given anything to protect Bruce, up to and including his own life. Always a tragedy when such a thing occurs. Barbara has never been a very religious woman, but she does have faith. Her partner on the force says she takes after her father in that regard. She’s read every single holy book she can get her hands on and she always comes back to one particular verse.

_“Love has no greater one than this, to lay down one’s life for a friend.”_

It’s what pops into her head whenever she thinks of ole Pennyworth. She likes to think he would be flattered.

Bruce has taken to moving her wheelchair over to the side of her bed for simplicity’s sake. She’s grateful and knows it comes from a good place, but she also wants him to know she’s still fully capable of taking care of herself- well, outside of the obvious. He doesn’t need to come behind her and do everything for Barbara Gordon just because her legs don’t work anymore. She knows he blames himself and he shouldn’t. She’s told him that time and time again. “The Joker is an unhinged psychopath, Bruce, you are not responsible in any way for his actions.” She also knows that sometimes Bruce wishes he could justify breaking his no-kill rule. Just the once, of course. Not because of Barbara. This predates Barbara. Still, she’s not sure she could live with that. One of the things she loves about Bruce is his unwavering dedication to his principles.

She opens her eyes again and she settles on the nightstand. This simple white thing is bare most days, save for a lamp and a book. A very thick book.

Her dad’s journal. Mom finished it, Bruce pulled some strings to have it published. Most of this city wants to forget what brought them here, settle into their new reality as if it has always been the norm. That’s not how life works. You can’t just turn a blind eye to something because it makes you uncomfortable. Barbara doesn’t have much patience for people who do that. She wants to know. To understand the sacrifices that allowed Gotham to go on when it teetered on the brink of final destruction.

Her dad always called it a journal but it wasn’t really. It reads like a narrative as opposed to a catalog or something more like a journal article. A diary her dad’s old partner would’ve teased him about. It’s a book and she’s always called it a book. When she was eight, she got into an argument with Jim over what it was. She won, but here stubborn old man refused to have the title changed. Barbara liked to call it _The Chronicle of the Cataclysm_. Commissioner Gordon thought that was too dramatic. Just a journal, he said. She can allow him that. It’s his birthday. After lunch, she has plans to go see him. With a light groan, she pushes herself up and glances at the analog clock on the wall. She had insisted Bruce put one up when she first moved in all those years ago. Barbara Gordon is obsessed with time and never feels like she has enough of it.

6:57 in the morning. Plenty of time to read this thing cover to cover. Reaching for her glasses and turning on the lamp, she grabs the book.


End file.
